One-on-one with I&M Bank’s Kumaran Pather: “One year after rebranding things are looking brighter for everybody- and we are just getting started” On November 8th 2021 the I&M Group Plc officially launched its rebranded operations, renaming the majority-acquired Orient Bank to I&M Bank Uganda, with a promise to unlock the bank’s full potential and reach out to more customers within Uganda and the Eastern Africa region. The Group also promised I&M Bank would roll out a more diversified and digitally-led product and service range, in line with its Imara 2.0 strategy. A year later, Mr. Kumaran Pather, a seasoned banking executive with over 20 years of banking experience across 7 African countries, who has been leading this transformation spoke to CEO East Africa Magazine’s Muhereza Kyamutetera, about the progress today and the bank’s medium-term outlook. Excerpts below.

It is now one year since the I&M Bank brand was ushered into the Ugandan Market. What has been the journey like so far?

The last year has been about consolidation and positioning ourselves as “I&M Bank Uganda” in the market. Orient Bank was a solid brand in this market, having been here for 28 years and with loyal customers- so we couldn’t just rush the transition. It had to be deliberate so that no one is left behind. I am glad that has gone very well.  

The second thing, after the name change, was the integration of our systems and processes into the Group’s. Integration is a complex thing because we had to align everything to the Group’s way of doing things. But thanks to my and some of my team’s previous experience in similar integrations, and rebranding, again has gone on well. We created 11 work streams across the entire bank, and each of the work streams had to independently and collectively be integrated into Group systems and processes. Now we can comfortably say we are very much part of the I&M Group. It took a lot of time because there are many things like governance, standards, policies, processes and procedures that we had to painstakingly integrate while at the same time ensuring compliance with the Ugandan regulatory requirements and standards. That took a while, but it came through nicely.

The third and equally important item has been rebuilding the entire leadership team- which is something that had started even much earlier. Over the last two and a half years, we have put together a new team of 15 leaders in all the key functions. We had to find the right individuals aligned with the vision of the Group. Critical to note is that 13 out of 15 of our senior leadership is made up of homegrown Ugandan talent with very significant industry experience. I am keen on localisation, as a matter of principle, because this industry has a lot of capable talent.  

With the rebranding, integration with the Group and key leadership addressed or underway, the fourth piece has been about focusing on aligning our customers to the I&M way of doing things and ensuring they get world-class service. We had to sensitise the customers, so they get a very good sense of who I&M is and what we will be doing to meet their expectations. It was also important that they get a good understanding of the group’s strengths so they can understand our ability to be that reliable partner they are looking for.  

The final piece was to return the bank to profitability. Indeed, already in the first year, we are seeing very positive signs of growth across all major fundamentals including profitability. With all that we have built, we hope to remain on this positive trajectory towards the market share that we want to acquire. 

So in summary, the first year has been great and we are on course to achieve the things that we wanted to achieve.  

How has been the market reception of the new brand? Are they warming up to it? 

The reception has been very positive and in some cases, beyond our expectations. In some of the markets, I have worked, an exercise like this would take at least 4 years before rebranding, integration and stakeholder alignment is complete. But in our case, most of the things were accomplished within 6 months. 

The I&M brand has been received very positively- probably partly because the I&M brand is not new in East Africa, as we are present in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Mauritius. Business customers, with regional transactions and businesses, were likely, already familiar with the brand. 

We have continued to assure both new and existing customers about our collective strengths and stability as a Group, as well as our commitment to Uganda. We also continue to assure them and demonstrated our commitment and ability to provide a great customer experience. I believe the growth we are seeing +16%  in assets and about +14% in liabilities so far, is a positive sign of what the market thinks about the I&M Bank brand. 

What are some of the major milestones to date? To what extent have you been able to deliver on the promises made at the launch especially on the “We are on your side” brand promise? 

We have made some good progress, and there is a lot to still be done because remember this is our first year. In line with the Group’s commitment to strengthen our long-term value for stakeholders through its commitment to Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), we have had a series of Corporate Social Responsibility engagements. For example, we are working with the Buganda Kingdom in their initiative to fight HIV/Aids among young girls. In line with our education and skills development programme, we are engaged in a number of mentorship programmes with students from selected higher institutions of learning, starting with Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST). 

Another important milestone is a culture transformation programme with our staff- the Pamoja Transformation Programme. This is about rebuilding the culture of the bank from within; getting colleagues to understand what are the values of I&M and to understand what are the behaviours that they must live and demonstrate to deliver these values. More importantly, we have been engaging our colleagues to tell us what type of organisation they want to work in because the Pamoja Cultural Transformation Program is built from the bottom up. It is collectively built by the employees. They get to decide what kind of organisation they want to work for; the work environment and the values they want to live, to be able to deliver that kind of organisation. It also addresses the skills gap and what kind of training they would require to fill those gaps.  

The third milestone has been engaging with the customers- telling them about the bank and what it is capable of and, guiding us on their needs and how they would like the bank to support them. That has helped us to reevaluate ourselves, what we have and what we don’t have and what we should be doing. There are a lot of things that have come from this engagement around our customer service proposition. For example, we have reevaluated the banking platform that we have, because the banking platforms determine a lot, including, how sharp the products are, and how efficient they are, especially from a digital perspective. Next year, we will be installing a new core banking system enabling us to do so many things from the service and product innovation perspective. 

We have also picked from the customers, that regional and cross-border banking is important, so we are putting more emphasis on that. This has been a very successful proposition with our customers who are in Uganda but are looking to enter or are already doing business in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Mauritius. Similarly, Group clients in these countries that are doing business in Uganda too, have found it very useful and are embracing I&M Bank Uganda.  

Then the fourth milestone is new products. One of the first new products has been offshore banking, via our Group subsidiary in Mauritius called Bank One. Offshore banking allows customers to enjoy several benefits, such as being able to hold, make and receive payments in multiple currencies as well as receive international expertise and investment advice. We have also started providing- for our High Net Worth clients, wealth and financial planning, again in partnership with Bank One. The third new product is investment banking through I&M Burbidge Capital. This helps our corporate clients raise capital to fund their businesses through instruments and vehicles such as debt or equity capital. This is a refreshing proposition and a differentiator in the market and good for Uganda’s economic development as well, as it attracts foreign investment. These are some of the benefits of being part of I&M and the market is appreciating. We can only look forward to more great things! 

Apart from the above new products for the high net worth customers, how else are other customers benefiting from being part of the I&M Group? Are we going to see the existing products overhauled and aligned to the I&M Group for example? 

Certainly. We have already enhanced our internet and mobile banking platform. We shall also be adding more features to make it more convenient and functional. Secondly, we have brought in 40 new intelligent ATMs that will allow our customers to do much more at the ATMs and we shall roll these out starting next year. We have partnered with a Group called Way4, to use their card management system to create additional services on our cards such as a rewards system. There are going to be a lot of interesting and exciting things on our digital banking platforms. 

Soon, we will also be launching our new Kingdom Kampala branch, a top-of-range branch, with a corporate service centre, a high-net-worth suite and a high-tech stand-alone digital pod in which customers can self-service and do so much more. When we launch our new banking platform next year, there are going to be a lot of new products that are already doing great in other markets such as Tanzania, Rwanda, and Kenya, Mauritius that we shall also introduce here to give more variety as well as seamless cross-border service to customers already using them elsewhere. 

Given the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is difficult to talk about what you are doing for customers without looking at how the bank has supported clients, to withstand the effects of the pandemic. How has I&M Bank helped your clients to weather the storm? 

There are clear guidelines that were introduced by the Bank of Uganda, which has been very supportive and proactive in providing credit relief guidelines. Customers who applied for credit relief have been remediated and most of them have bounced back to stability. But there are specific industries such as the hospitality and education industries which experienced extended impact by the pandemic, and we continue to listen to them and work with them on whatever additional support they need and where there can be further extensions in terms of support, we have been able to offer it. You know, much as the credit relief guidelines have expired, the Bank of Uganda has not switched it off completely. Even though the monitoring period has ended, where there is a need, we can appeal, individually where we have to do some restructuring of certain accounts, to help the customers and ease off payments. Covid-19 aside we anticipate some sectors like hospitality and travel, could be affected by the Ebola outbreak. But we are working with them to closely understand what support they need and where we can render the support that they want. Overall, we believe it is important to stand by customers to ensure that their businesses are functioning well. 

How have all these initiatives impacted financial performance, especially since Orient bank was loss-making at the time of acquisition? 

There have been significant improvements in our financial performance. As I told you earlier, our assets have grown by 16% and the liabilities (deposits) have grown by 14%. Our customer base is growing too and this has positively impacted our profitability. Our half-year results show we are profitable. It is a very positive story and we expect to continue that trajectory in the medium term- 3 to 4 years. We will also continue investing more, so that we can get our rightful market share within the banking sector.  

Speaking of the medium-term investment plan, what more can we look forward to, from I&M Bank in the coming 3 to 5 years? 

I think the first commitment is a continuous improvement of the customer experience because this is a very high-demanding market in terms of service. That will be the key differentiator. That is why we are investing significantly in digitizing, starting with a new core banking system next year and on the back of that, a lot of enhancements and automation of our processes and a big shift to paperless processes- both banking and non-banking.

As I mentioned earlier, we have opened and shall soon launch our Kingdom Kampala branch which has a corporate service centre, a high-net-worth suite and a high-tech stand-alone digital self-service pod. Customers will be able to make deposits, including bulk cash, as well as interact with call centre agents on the phone or FaceTime. Overall the digitisation agenda will be key because the future customer will be more digitally savvy and more digitally demanding. We see more transactional banking, including corporate deposits getting more digitalised, leaving the branch more for consultations and advisory services. The ergonomic design of the Kingdom Kampala branch takes all this, into consideration.  Equally important, the Kingdom Kampala branch speaks more to the renewed look and feel of I&M Bank in Uganda as well as our commitment to this market.

Stakeholders should also expect to see us more engaged and creating more impact in the community as well as pursuing and funding initiatives that bring about more long-term value in line with the Group’s strong ESG agenda.